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Jackson is issuing a new boil water notice every other day

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Jackson is issuing a new boil water notice every other day

While a massive federal cash infusion is on the horizon for Jackson’s troubled water system, the city’s notorious boil water notices are piling up.

Since Gov. Tate Reeves proudly declared the end of a citywide advisory on Sept. 15 following the state’s takeover of the drinking water system, Jackson — now under the supervision of a federally appointed third-party administrator — has issued 70 new boil water notices, or more than one every other day, including 16 this month alone.

The city hasn’t gone a day without an active boil water notice for over a month, since Dec. 21.

In the U.S. Department of Justice’s complaint against Jackson in November over drinking water violations, the agency listed over 320 boil water notices that had been issued between May 2020 and last October. Mississippi Today mapped out those notices, as well as those issued since then — totaling 381 — below:

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The zip codes that received the most boil water notices in that two and a half-year stretch were 39211 (northeast Jackson) and 39209 (west Jackson) with 56 each.

In terms of Census tracts — a narrower geographic breakdown — the parts of the city with the most notices were Belhaven (between Woodrow Wilson Avenue and Fortification Street, east of State Street) with 29, and central Jackson (between Woodrow Wilson Avenue and Meadowbrook Road, including Fondren) with 22.

The average length of the notices was about four days, with the longest notice lasting 49 days; that advisory came in January 2021 for 25 connections on Forest Hill Road in south Jackson and continued during the winter freeze that led to a citywide notice.

On average, the length of boil water notices are longer in south Jackson, the section of the city farthest from the city’s main treatment plant in Ridgeland, than the rest of the city, as mapped below:

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City officials attribute most of these notices to aging and fragile water lines. Ted Henifin, the city’s third-party manager of the water system, said last month he expects a project using $20 million from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to upgrade 10 miles of water lines in the city to start this summer. With about 100 miles of smaller-than-ideal water lines in Jackson, Henifin estimated it may take five to 10 years to make the necessary replacements.

Currently, the city has three active boil water notices for different parts of the city — Oak Brook Drive, Lakeland Lane and parts of Byram (click here for full details) — affecting 190 connections, as well as a conservation notice that went into effect last summer.

For information on what to do during and after a boil water notice, visit the state Department of Health’s guidelines here.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1848

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mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2025-02-15 07:00:00

Feb. 15, 1848

Like the Black children shown in this engraving from the Anti-Slavery Almanac in Boston, Sarah Roberts was denied entrance to school because of the color of her skin. Credit: Public Domain

Sarah Roberts, a 5-year-old Black American, entered an all-white school in Boston, only to be turned away. She wound up entering four more white schools, and each time she was shown the door. And so she found herself walking from home, passing five all-white schools on the way to an all-black school the city of Boston was forcing her to attend. 

This angered her father, Benjamin, one of the nation’s first Black American printers, and he sued the city. Robert Morris, one of the nation’s first Black lawyers, took up the case. 

“Any child unlawfully excluded from public school shall recover damages therefore against the city or town by which such public instruction is supported,” Morris wrote. 

He and co-counsel Charles Sumner argued that the Constitution of Massachusetts held all are equal before the law, regardless of race, and that the laws creating public schools made no distinctions. 

Sumner wrote, “Prejudice is the child of ignorance … sure to prevail where people do not know each other.” 

In 1850, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld the racial segregation of public schools. The attorneys brought the issue to state lawmakers. In 1855, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts banned segregated schools — the first law barring segregated schools in the U.S.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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State, MS Power extend life of coal unit to energize data centers

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mississippitoday.org – Alex Rozier – 2025-02-14 14:53:00

Last week, the state Public Service Commission unanimously approved a special contract that will extend the life of a Mississippi Power coal unit in order to meet energy demands for a recently announced data center project in Meridian.

Mississippi Public Service Central District Commissioner De’Keither Stamps, discusses current agency operations across the state during an interview at district headquarters, Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

Gov. Tate Reeves announced last month a $10 billion investment from Compass Datacenters. The Dallas-based company will build eight centers, and in exchange will receive multiple tax exemptions, Mississippi Today reported. The project will be located within the Mississippi Power service area. The utility, a subsidiary of Southern Company, serves 192,000 customers in the southern and eastern parts of the state.

Following a 2020 directive from the PSC to get rid of excess generation capacity, Mississippi Power initially planned to close the two coal-powered units at Plant Victor J. Daniel — in Jackson County, about 10 miles north of Moss Point — by 2027. In 2023, though, the utility pushed the retirement date back a year in order to support demand needs for its sibling company, Georgia Power, Grist reported.

Then on Jan. 9, Mississippi Power informed the PSC that, in order to power the Compass Datacenter facilities, it would have to delay closure of at least one of the coal units, as well as “potentially other fossil steam units,” until the mid-2030s.

Central District Public Service Commissioner De’Keither Stamps told Mississippi Today that the PSC’s job is to meet demand, and that until Mississippi Power has the option to include nuclear power in its arsenal, “we’re going to need all the power we can get in that service area.”

“We can’t stop economic development because we’ve got to wait, you know, 15 years for some nuclear power in the service area,” Stamps said.

Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave.
Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave. Credit: Mississippi State Senate

Throughout the last couple decades, the country has moved away from coal as an energy source because of its contribution to global warming but also because of air and water pollution associated with coal-burning facilities. A 2023 study from George Mason University, the University of Texas and Harvard University found that exposure to fine particulate pollutants known as PM2.5 from coal plants contributed to 460,000 deaths around the country between 1999 and 2020, twice the mortality rate of PM2.5 exposure from other sources.

Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave, whose district includes Plant Daniel, called the facility a “fixture of our community” because of the jobs and tax revenue it provides. He said he wasn’t aware of any health concerns related to air emissions from the plant.

“I don’t hear from any constituents that say, ‘Hey, we don’t want this here,’” England said.

England added that Plant Daniel retiring units could potentially hurt its tax assessment, meaning less revenue for public needs like the local school district. He also pointed to emission “scrubbers” that Plant Daniel and other coal facilities have added in recent years. The same 2023 study found that scrubbers have dramatically decreased sulfur dioxide emissions as well as air pollution-related deaths.

In addition to Compass Datacenters, Mississippi Power also entered into a special contract to supply power for a plywood manufacturer, owned by Hood Industries, in Beaumont, Mississippi.

The two deals, a spokesperson for Mississippi Power said, necessitate keeping the coal and other units set for retirement alive.

“We are committed to keeping the Mississippi Public Service Commission and our customers up to date and will present additional details in our upcoming 2025 Mid-Point Supply-Side Update,” spokesperson Jeff Shepard said via email. “These incredible economic development projects will create a significant number of jobs and bring billions of dollars of investment to southeast Mississippi.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Legislation to license midwifery clears another hurdle

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mississippitoday.org – Sophia Paffenroth – 2025-02-14 12:06:00

A bill that would establish a clear pathway for Mississippians seeking to become professional midwives passed the House after dying in committee several years in a row. 

“Midwives play an important role in our state, especially in areas where maternal health care is scarce,” said Rep. Dana McLean, R-Columbus and author of the bill. “I’m happy that House Bill 927 passed the House yesterday and urge our senators to join us in passing this much-needed legislation.”  

Despite the legislation imposing regulations on the profession and mandating formalized training, many midwives have voiced their support of the bill. They say it will help them care more holistically for women and allow them new privileges like the ability to administer certain labor medications – and will open the door to insurance reimbursement in the future. 

“We have so few midwives integrated in the system and so few midwives practicing in the state,” explained Amanda Smith, a midwife in Hattiesburg who went out of state to receive her professional midwifery license. “We believe that licensure really will help create a clear pathway so people know exactly how to become a midwife in Mississippi.”

It isn’t guaranteed that the bill would make midwifery more accessible to low-income women. But licensure makes it more likely. 

Currently, neither Medicaid nor private insurance reimburse for unlicensed midwifery services. Licensing professional midwifery wouldn’t necessarily mean that insurance companies would immediately start reimbursing for the services, but it’s the only way they might. 

A new federal program is seeking to make midwifery reimbursable by Medicaid. 

Mississippi is one of 15 states chosen by the federal government to participate in a new grant program called the Transforming Maternal Health Model, which began in January 2025 and will work to expand access and reimbursement for services – including licensed midwifery. 

The bill has historically faced opposition both from those who think it does too much, as well as those who think it does too little. 

To those who think it overregulates the profession, McLean says her loyalty lies with her constituents and making sure they have the most transparency when seeking birth options. Currently, anyone can operate under the title midwife in the state of Mississippi – with no required standard of training. 

“We are legitimizing (professional midwifery) … As a legislator, it’s my duty to try to protect the citizens of Mississippi,” McLean said. “And by putting this legislation forward, it helps to inform those clients that would want the services of a midwife but don’t know how to choose.”

As for those who think it does too little, McLean says the bill would leave the details up to a board – established by the bill and made up mostly of midwives – who would be able to decide requirements for professional midwifery better than a room full of lawmakers. 

“There’s a lot of men in here that know a lot about birthing babies,” McLean said during a lively floor debate Thursday.

The bill now advances to the Senate. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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